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Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Terminator - Genisys - Movie Review

Went to see the Fifth Terminator film in the series and have to say it's my favourite so far.
They have tried to soft reboot the franchise to freshen it up by changing the time line and - SPOILERS - making the saviour of the human race John Connor the main bad!
How you may ask? Well you'll need to watch the film but it mostly makes sense.

The film embodies all the previous films from Terminator Salvations future apocalyptic siege of Sky net which has the John Connor we are familiar with sending Kyle Reece back to 1984 to save his Mom Sarah Connor played beautifully by the sexy Emilia Clarke (of GOT fame).

So far so familiar as when Kyle is sent back as per the original Terminator movie most shots are shot the same - at first it's like watching the first film.
Then it takes a strange twist with a cop who tries to kill Kyle turns out to be the shape shifting T1000.
Kyle is saved by Sarah Connor who is already a warrior woman as she has been trained by an old version of the Arnold Schwarznegger T800 Terminator who was sent even further down the timeline to save Sarah as a girl. She affectionately calls him Pop.

A highlight of the film is seeing Pops Terminator take out the younger version who shows up in the first film.
It's all a bit timey wimey as Matt Smiths Doctor Who would say - interestingly enough Matt or as the credits call him Matthew Smith shows up as the embodiment of Skynet and attacks John Connor as he sends Kyle back affecting timeline and turning John into a new type of Terminator. It's as Kyle travels back he has a new memory of his boy self saying Genisys is Skynet.

So in 1984 once Sarah, Kyle and Pops takes out the T1000 they use a time machine Pops has been making to hop forward to 2017. Pops has to take the long route and his human skin ages him naturally.

Anyway it's all great fun with excellent special effects and changes the timeline totally which gives it a fresh spin. All the actors are good in the film even Arnie who can be hit and miss.

It also leaves loads of unanswered questions -
When did Skynet send the T1000 to the seventies to kill young Sarah and who sent Pops to save her?

What will happen to John Connor as he is not conceived anymore in 1984?

Have Emilia Clarke and Lena Headey - who are both in GOT and both now played Sarah Connor - Emilia here and Lena in Sarah Connor Chronicles had a fight to see who's the best?

Hopefully these questions and more will be answered in the next film.

Overall - A great refreshing take and new direction for the Terminator franchise - go see it. Score 9/10